French Security Bill To Authorize Internet Filtering
On February 16, 2010, the Assemblée Nationale, the lower house of the French legislature, approved the draft Loi d’Orientation et de Programmation pour la Sécurité Intérieure (Law on the Orientation and Programming for Internal Security, or “LOPPSI”[1]). After the DADVSI law of 2007, which criminalized Digital Rights Management (DRM) circumvention, and the controversial HADOPI law [...]
Australian Federal Court Finds ISP Not Liable For Users’ Copyright Infringements
In a decision delivered on February 4, 2010, the Federal Court of Australia (see Wikipedia entry here) ruled that Australian Internet Service Provider (ISP) iiNet could not be held liable for unauthorized downloads of copyrighted movies by its customers (Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (No. 3)). The applicants were a coalition of thirty-four [...]
Could the WTO bring down the Great Firewall of China?
Google’s recent announcement that it is no longer willing to censor content on its China-based search engine, google.cn, has once again highlighted the difficulties U.S.-based online service providers face in the Chinese market. The reason given by Google for the move was a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [its] corporate infrastructure originating from [...]
Prison terms for Google executives in Italy?
An Italian prosecution against Google made the headlines again this week (New York Times, Bloomberg) with the news that prosecutors in Milan are pushing for three Google executives and one former executive to be sentenced to terms of imprisonment for their failure promptly to take down an offensive video from the Italian-language Google Video service [...]
STLR Cheat Sheet: Oracle’s Takeover of Sun Microsystems
Oracle Corp.’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. has hit the IT headlines again this week with the issue of the European Commission’s formal statement of objections, presaging an uphill battle for Oracle to secure antitrust clearance in the EU. STLR brings you this cheat sheet on the issues, explaining what’s at stake, the [...]